Anger and Forgiveness

My anger at the Children of the sixties for ruining the World

I recently woke up and realized that I have allowed hate to feaster in my heart. Granted it sprang from a righteous hate of evil—but it became an unforgiving hate of unrepentant sinners. Men who deserve my pity and prayers, not my hate. Men whose hearts are hardened and whose ears are stopped up, who look upon evil calling it good, but when glimpsing good shrink away calling it evil.

I am a child of the post Christian world. I have felt the world's despair and have been sicken by it, my mind is corrupted by the spirit of this age, and my vision tainted by it. My parent's generation, possibly unwittingly, brought about the final battle against the Christian West and after after centuries of siege its great walls fell. Europe, which was the faith, forsook its strong foundations. Now many things of great beauty have been destroyed. However worse than the destruction of Christian art, thinking, and culture is the destruction of the Christian paradigm of man as an icon, an image and likeness of God.

Our age is in the grips of the sickeness unto death and still these wise fools continue along their path to destruction closing their eyes to all the misery their lies have caused. They say naively, “a little more power, a little more time, we must stay the course and we will be the saviors of mankind.” They continue on their path, with some defections by those who see the errors of their ways, they continue down the path of destruction their backs to the Light. They have lead many into errors, their errors abound, so that even those men of good will who's hearts repent have a difficult time returning to the fold. They cooperate with evil, destroying and negating the goodness of creation.

These men and women have sinned greatly against their children. However for the first time I realize that if I continued down the path of hate their sins have kindled in my heart I would soon end up like them. And so I resolve to pray for them, to forgive them, and to see in them the eclipsed icon of Christ.

The forgotten sacramental—community

It seems to me that in The Catholic Church, at least in much of the Roman Rite, we have forgotten one of the most important sacramentals; the one that goes hand and hand with the Sacrament which the Catechism of the Church describes as the source and summit of our Christian lives.

In the not too distant past I had the privledge to visit with a community of Ge'ez Rite Catholics. Now if you haven't heard of the Ge'ez rite don't feel too bad, I hadn't either until a friend told me about them. This rite, which dates back to the 4th century Ethiopia and has its roots in the Coptic Rite, has only one parish in the US. Their belief in God and in the Presence could be seen in every part of their two hour liturgy. It was quite beautiful, and unlike their Roman co-religionists they did not complain ever five minutes after the liturgy last longer than an hour. However, what struck me most was how welcoming these people were—AFTER the liturgy was over and all had had sufficient time for thanksgiving, we were greeted by numerous worshipers and their priest and deacon. Whats more despite the length of the liturgy, or maybe because of it, almost all those present at the liturgy proceeded directly to the parish hall to begin the fellowship and feasting that was common to the early Christians but has been forgotten by many in the Roman Rite.

We say that as a parish community we are the people of God. Yet it strikes me that in most parishes after a Mass has ended people immediately shift gears and no longer want anything to do with the people of God. Sure, there are coffee hours and small clicks that get together after Mass—some talking in loud voices in the Church before, after, and sometimes during the liturgy—most of these involving the elderly of the community. However for the majority Catholics, fifteen minutes after the kiss of peace and receiving the bread of heaven, they are beeping and yelling at their brothers and sisters in Christ, so that they can leave the church parking lot all the more rapidly.

All people Catholic or not, are children of God. Each person in their uniqueness is a mystery that in his own way reveals the goodness and glory of God and in a specially way
Catholics, after having received the bread from heaven, are icons of the divine. The community that we gather together to pray with in a special way is a gift from Christ that gives grace. Just as the family is the domestic Church, so the Church is a supernatural family. In a unique way we are bound to the people of God through baptism, and we reject God's gift of grace when we reject the fellowship and community of life that is essential to a parish community and that flows out of the communion we make in the Eucharist.

In a solemn way Christ broke bread and gave it to his disciples and in a similar way he gave the chalice of wine to them, and it is important to remember that this breaking of bread was the institution of a supernatural sacrifice consummated on Calvary. We must never confuse the sacrifice of the Mass with a community meal the way our separated brothers in Christ have. However while not confusing the sacrifice with the meal is their any reason why we as Catholic ought not celebrate both?? Both the sacrifice of the Mass followed by the feast of thanksgiving and community?

My frustration with Politics

Politics is an art, not a science. Sciences study the way things are in nature. Arts are meant to artificially recreate things in nature for the sake of the common good. Humans have made, through artifice, most of the structures of society in this world. The one exception being the family—which is both natural and fundamental to humanity. The family is the first society, the first government, the building block of society, and in fact it is the model for all other artificially created forms of governments. This is, of course, not to say, as Rousseau did, that governance is un-natural, no it is quite natural even if the structure it takes on are artificial.

Naturally speaking people are from the beginning in societies with hierarchical governing systems. A child is born and is immediately subject to its father and mother. The “government” which this child is subject to is responsible for providing for the good of the child: his sustenance, his education, etc. In the ideal family the father plays the role of “king” of the family, not tyrant, providing for, raising, and correcting his children. Fathers serve as the face of the family, as the primary bread winner for a family with small children, as the chief disciplinarian for the family, etc. However they are most unique from their wives in their primary purpose, defense. They are charged with the defense of their wives and children much in the same way that a mid-evil warlord or king might be charged with the defense of the realm.

A mother, though in some ways subject to the “king” (her husband), especially while nursing and raising the small children, is in reality her husband's partner, consort, and chief adviser who aids in raising, nurturing, and governing the “populi,” the children. In this way a wife is like an aristocrat. Ideally wives serve the role of the aristocracy, providing counsel to the government and yet accepting decisions that are contrary to her counsel so long as they are not intrinsically immoral or evil. In the ageless tradition of true aristocracy, as opposed to oligarchy, a wife and mother provides the voice of morality for the family when the monarch, i.e. the father, falters, as we all occasionally do. Of course in this model the children are like the people, often driven by passions, often impulsive, and often in need of guidance and assistance. Children are born a tabula rasa, a blank slate, which must be educated and nurtured into a mature adult. Of course it is less the case that children are like the people, wives live the aristocracy, and husbands like monarchs than that “the people” are like children, aristocrats are like wives, and kings are like fathers, since the family is prior to the state.

This view of the family and politics is not my own, but rather, is described in detail by Aristotle and Aquinas. Moreover the ideal family is described in the epistle of St. Paul to the Ephesians where he admonishes wives to be submissive to their husbands (Ep 5:23-24). However this charge cannot be understood without the verse that follows immediately on its heals, “husbands love your wives.” Husbands are the head of the family as Christ is the head of the Church, and therefor authority and leadership requires service and self sacrifice. Love is the key to this description of the ideal family, because without love this becomes the description of what some people claim it is, a chauvinistic tyranny. However with love authority is not abused, or lorded over others, but rather it is used for the benefit of the individual and the whole. This of course has obvious implications for how just governments should be ordered whether monarchies, aristocracies, or polities. Furthermore St. Paul admonishes children to obey their parents (Ep 6:1-2), invoking the fourth commandment of Moses, “honor your mother and father.” This of course means that in the case of a just government the people ought to honor their government and obey it.

The ideal government, the building block of all societies, the family, is thusly ordered toward creating life through children, promoting goodness through discipline, promoting truth through leaning, and promoting beauty through love. In this way the family participates in the transcendentals—in the familial relationship of the triune God-head. This participation is most perfectly seen in the Holy family of Nazareth. This is also how larger societies ought to be ordered, and here is the purpose of politics to help create these larger societies modeled after God's perfect model.

My frustration with modern day politics is thus twofold. First so-called “political science,” forgets that politics is an art, choosing to observe politics as it is rather than teach how it ought to be. For it is the duty of the masters of an art to teach his students how to do the art well, not how to observe the art being done haphazardly. More fundamental however is the fact that, as a result of politics, the art, forgetting itself politics has cast off any pretense of following the natural model. It has disconnected itself from the transcendentals and thus has disconnected itself from God. Modern politics is not longer about truth, but about propaganda, no longer about goodness but about power, no longer about beauty but about efficiency, and most disturbingly it is no longer about bringing things into existence, but rather about maintaining the tired old things that are already in existence. This is most obviously seen in the undermining of the family that has gone on over the past decade and a half.

This problem is not unique to right or left, liberal or conservative, but seems to be almost universal in society and until it is corrected I fear for the existence of our nation. For if we turn away our face from God we are blind, if he turns away his face from us we are as nothing.

Love

Love is:
not a feeling,
not an emotion,
not physical pleasure.
Love is none of these things because these things are fleeting and love is eternal
Love does not decay or diminish
Love is a stange cordal of unity and plurality
Love makes many one and gives one the power of many
Love can be given to one or to a thousand and yet remain undivided
Love is the contridiction to the rule for it allows one and one to equal one and three
Love is a thousand unseen kindnesses
Love is a rose on the day of you 123rd day anniversary
Love is the agony you feel when your beloved is in pain
Love is accepting pain and hardship for the good of your beloved
Love is the pain of birth and the joy of new life
Love is the first squeez from your tiny newborn's hand
Love is a long night spent by your sick little one's bedside
Love is the hard years of work spent to nurture and raise your child
with no assurance of reward!
Love is not easy but it is in the end the greatest treasure in the world—the only treasure we can earn in this life and take to the next

LIFE: MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS HUMANITY

“When I was a child I spoke as a child...” As children we have not a care in the world. We just are, we trust those who care for us, no matter whether they smother us with love or forget that we are there. We are happy, at least at first, playing, with toys if present, even with plain old dirt and water. We dream, engaging the world with our imagination and immersing ourselves in hope as we would a down comforter on a cold winter day. Essentially we are happy with just being, we wonder at the marvelous things around us acknowledging their innate intelligibility we ask why?, what?, where?, and how?. For children everything is wondrous and the only thing to fear is the monster under your bed or in the closet, but even this is not of much concern to you because you rest assured in the faith that your mommy and daddy will save you if the monster rears its ugly head.

“But when I became a man I put aside childish things...” And then every thing changes, you put aside your childish fears of evil lurking in the corner and you begin to search in earnest for yourself; and in doing so you begin to see the failures and sins of others. You doubt. The more sin abounds the more the boy in pursuit of manhood doubts, the more he looses the ability to trust. While at the same time in his search for himself the he digs inwardly the more he realizes his own lack of being. True, he is there, standing there, thinking about himself thinking, but this is a illusion, you can't have true being unless you have true purpose. Finally in his search for himself he finds out that at his core he IS NOT. This is maturity, this is what all men must arrive at if they are to truly become men, this is the crisis. We see, if only for a minute, that the world that most people pretend to live in is a fantasy, a machine concocted in the mind of some overly rationalist men who preferred to live in a predictable, i.e. controllable, illusion rather than in an unpredictable reality. Our world of doing, and systems, is for an instant unmasked as sand, a poor foundation for building an eternal self, and we are faced with the decision.

We find ourselves empty, subsistent, lacking substance, and we are face with Kierkegaard's existential decision, do we despair or do we move from despair in search of the purpose and meaning for our lives open to the One who can fill our emptiness? Pain and death, replace in the adult, the monster hiding under the child's bed. If we choose to continue in despair, we either lie to ourselves assuring ourselves that we are not in despair, that death is the limit, the end, and so we must make meaning for our meaningless lives, most often embracing the hedonistic mantra “eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die,” or we acknowledge our despair and continue in ever greater horror of death. This is where it seems that the majority of our contemporaries reside, either denying that this existential anxiety exists, or acknowledging it and becoming consumed by it, i.e. embracing nihilism. In the poetry of John Paul II we see quite clearly this anxiety, which is truly good and useful if we choose not to continue in despair. For despair is a rejection of the Good in this world, at one or many levels it is a rejection of the goodness of existence and a refusal to engage the world in the way proper to man.

Despair is sin, it is a sickness that leads unto eternal death. But this despair is not necessarily a bad thing—despair is the natural response of man, separated from the font of life. In man despair causes an existential anxiety, i.e. fear, and in fear is the beginning of wisdom. Death is the limit, the horizon, for man. It is the the limit of life as we know it and thus it terrorizes man. Death means the end of this semi-subsistent state, like the top container of an hour glass, our being slowly pours out as we approach death. In response to the numberedness of our days man can give up on life, he can pretend that annihilation doesn't bother him, or he can look to the one whose days are numberless. And looking to He who IS that he IS, in trust and love, we can in a moment of his grace engage the eternal consciousness.

Jesus said, “if you wish to enter the Kingdom of heaven you must BEcome like one of these little ones.” In the end it seems that man in search of his humanity stops being a child to find himself and in finding himself starts being a child once more. Man is terrifies of death, and of pain, and maybe he should be, since these are not very nice things for an animal. But man's days as an animal are numbered and unless he wishes to inherit the destiny of the animals he must start to act like a man. Embracing the infinite, embracing his own limit and trusting that the Limitless One will carry him beyond it, man has no reason to fear death, or even pain. Man's reward is in heaven and no on earth, and thus death is impotent. “O death where is your sting?” In the end it turns out that fear of death and pain are immature, whereas fear of evil lurking in the corner are, though childish, are much more well-founded.

Cardinal Meisner Quo Vadis?

Cardinal Joachim Meisner, a German cardinal on Saturday said he regretted comparing abortion to the genocides carried out by Hitler and Stalin, which sparked a public outcry here, and claimed to have been misunderstood.

Aside from the immediate politically correct emotional response I ask what is the difference between the death camps, masacares, holocausts, and the gulags of the early 20th century and abortion. We, modern society, have taken a group of human beings and dehumanized them. An honest scientist will tell you that the fetus is not part of the mother, having a unique genetic code, and so it must a being a creature of its own right. What kind of being, you ask, well it has a unique intact human genetic code just like all other humans have. In fact no creature that is not a human has a human genetic code, and since DNA is the code of life, a fetus must be a human life, a human being. And so we are stuck with the fact that human beings are being carted off like things to horrid dark places where they are injected with poison, torn limb from limb, cut to pieces, and finally burned as biological waste.

It is true that the government is not mandating that these children be killed as Hilter mandated that the Jews, Poles, Gypsies, and Handicaps be killed. Sure everyone gasps in shock over government imposed killings like Chinese forced abortions, or the mass murders those of Stalin, or Hitler, however, I argue that what is happening today is even more evil and insiduous. Its worse than one mad man and a bunch of thugs murdering 9,000,000 people over six years. Today the government does not mandate murder, it simply promotes it, it rationalizes it, and in doing so it makes murders out of a whole people. In its propaganda, united with the propaganda of big businesses like Planned Parenthood and the Contraceptive/Abortificant Drug companies, who make a fortune off of abortion and contraception, it convinces the family members of the "targeted" groups to kill these humans rather than killing them by force. It is as if Hitler convinced Jews to wipe out their own race by convincing them to kill their own Children. And it is not just the unborn, governments and Capitalist mass-market culture are convincing families the world over to kill their wives, husbands, parents, aunts, and uncles because of something called "quality of life." Germans in Wiemar Germany also cared about quality of like, struck hard by World War I and the Depression they wanted to insure their quality of life, their material happiness, they did this as we are doing today by deporting and eventually killing off vast sections of their populace that were less than human, who didn't have a good quality of life, and who were a drain on the social order. The only difference is the German people could at least claim ignorance, since the vast majority of them at least did not have a clear picture of what is happening. We KNOW, we are complicit with this evil, and that is why this evil known as abortion and euthanasia, which is really just murder, plain and simple, is not just the same its worse than the evils of Hitler and Stalin and all the rest put together.

I do however fault the Cardinal, a Christian ought to be a source of contradiction, he ought to make people feel uncomfortable, and challenge them to accept the truth and to live by it, even when its hard. The Cardinal did all this, but then when he was about to be crucified for it he got down off of that cross. I hope the Cardinal contemplates what it would have meant if Jesus got off the Cross, and next time considers the famous question Quo Vadis?

The gift of life and suffering

Fair? Quality of life? What do these things mean? Chatting with some acquaintances the other day we came upon the sad story of a man, with three young children, who is in the last stages of a battle with brain cancer. This young man, and father, was always a vibrant fellow, always upbeat, always cheerful and loving, a faithful husband, father, and disciple of Christ Jesus. Now as he prepares for his death he can hardly speak, he is always sleeping, and he doesn't care to “entertain” visitors. My friends were saying how unfair it is that such a young energetic guy, with a wife and three young kids, had gotten such an bad deal. How unfair it was, that in his last days he had such a poor quality of life.And I thought to myself what do they mean? True, it is not a good thing that this man is dying—but it does happen eventually to the best of us. And it is a tragedy that he is leaving behind his wife and three children. But is there really any room for complaint? This man has live a good life for thirty or so years on the earth. He has been a good son, friend, husband, and father. From what I can tell, in talking with this man I have never gotten a complaint out of him, this man has no complaints and only regrets leaving his wife alone to raise their three children. We are all radically subsistent beings, none of us have a leg to stand on with out creation, without the constant emanation of existence from our creator. As Job says in Sacred scripture, I came naked from my mothers womb and naked I shall return. We have nothing that is our own—all that we have is a gift, which we did not create. Quoting Job again: if I have accepted good things from God should I not also accept evil. God does not give us evil things, just as a father does not give his son a snake when he asks for a loaf of bread. However, he does allow for the existence of evil, or rather more precisely for it not to exist, since evil is an absence of goodness, because without allowing for evil to “exist” nothing could exist except for God who is the only truly good thing in existence. But God's allowance for the existence of evil is such that evil can exist in the particular creature while still allowing for the overall goodness of creation. Thus even when, first the angel Lucifer and then, man increased the evil in creation by committing original sin and sentencing himself to suffering, death, and damnation, creation was still as a whole still good and still redeemable. The physical and moral evils in this world are a result of this original sin that will plague us till the end of the world, but where evil abounds grace abounds the fuller. All that we have and all that we shall receive is a gift from God for which we should be thankful—and if in the fullness of time God chose to take from us his breath of life, depriving us of existence, who are we to complain. Rather we ought at least to be thankful for what time he has given us. However, while our material bodies corrupt and return to the dust from which they came God so love mankind, go so love the world, of man, that in the fullness of time he sent his only begotten son that we might not perish but have eternal life. What my acquaintances could not grasp was that all of life is a gift—a gift which God has given us for a time in this life where we must suffer the effects of our own sins, and a gift which he has promised us even unto the end of the world for, ages unending, in the life to come.Yesterday as I visited with some people in the hospital I got many different responses to their suffering and illness. Some felt self-pity, others sorrow, others despair, and still others hope of going home, but one lady stood out as an example of how a Christian ought to react to suffering, illness, and even death. This woman had been sick for a while and did not expect to go home any time soon, and yet she was cheerful and happy, and she made those around her cheerful and happy. She had a hope which was not for any earthly peace but for the arms of her savior. Though in pain, though suffering, this woman approached life as it is, as a gift, and she gave thanksgiving for all the blessings she has received. Fairness or quality of life was not a part of the equation, for all that mattered was love, the true love of her savior. If more people embraced this philosophy of life, if more people embraced the love and hope that is the Christian faith, then there would be considerably more happy people in this world, despite, or rather because of their, infirmities, sufferings, and joys. A ll life is precious, be thankful for what is given you and adore He who gave it, this is the secret of true happiness.

posted by A Radically Subsistent Being at 10:43 AM

The Church

I spent the last three days in a small chapel on the New England seashore. The chapel wasn't much to glance at, but the people who built and worshiped at the chapel were fiercely proud, and defensive, of it. And although the chapel was significantly less beautiful, objectively speaking, than even the most simple of Gothic or roman style chapels of the so-called dark and middle ages it possessed a great beauty. Beauty that was not a material participation of the transcendental property beauty, but rather a spiritual participation in beauty—that is love. Within the little chapel through the whole night the people of God sat and prayed with Christ, truly present in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. These were the few the proud the elite of the Roman Catholic faithful. These were the people who truly believed the faith and lived it to the fullest.As the scandal in the Church continues, and I am not speaking of the “sex scandal” (see previous entry), the Church will in the words of Cardinal Ratzinger grow smaller, but at the same time she will become more fiercely Catholic. We will become more committed and devoted to the good news, and in doing so we will become stronger. Many people remember fondly the glory days of the 1950s and 40s, a period of affluence when the Church seemed to be coming into its own in this country and globally, but as the saying goes, the good old days were never really that good. The problems that are fully materializing today are the result of errors and sins and the works of the enemy that goes back millennia to original sins of Adam and Eve, but in particular goes back to the errors of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The fifties had the appearance of the faith without the real assent of faith that John Henry Cardinal Newman believed was essential to conversion of the heart. Thus in a way our current circumstances work more to our favor, since now the enemy is no longer camouflaged within our ranks but has become exposed. We should not loose faith, though our enemy is a cunning adversary, it has been promised from on high that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church just as they did not prevail against her head, Jesus Christ. While standing outside of that chapel keeping all night vigil with the Blessed Sacrament I realized that this chapel was symbolic of the Church. It was both small and diminished in size, but within it contained all that was need to attain eternal glory.
posted by A Radically Subsistent Being at 10:45 AM 0 comments

The gift of life and suffering
Fair? Quality of life? What do these things mean? Chatting with some acquaintances the other day we came upon the sad story of a man, with three young children, who is in the last stages of a battle with brain cancer. This young man, and father, was always a vibrant fellow, always upbeat, always cheerful and loving, a faithful husband, father, and disciple of Christ Jesus. Now as he prepares for his death he can hardly speak, he is always sleeping, and he doesn't care to “entertain” visitors. My friends were saying how unfair it is that such a young energetic guy, with a wife and three young kids, had gotten such an bad deal. How unfair it was, that in his last days he had such a poor quality of life.And I thought to myself what do they mean? True, it is not a good thing that this man is dying—but it does happen eventually to the best of us. And it is a tragedy that he is leaving behind his wife and three children. But is there really any room for complaint? This man has live a good life for thirty or so years on the earth. He has been a good son, friend, husband, and father. From what I can tell, in talking with this man I have never gotten a complaint out of him, this man has no complaints and only regrets leaving his wife alone to raise their three children. We are all radically subsistent beings, none of us have a leg to stand on with out creation, without the constant emanation of existence from our creator. As Job says in Sacred scripture, I came naked from my mothers womb and naked I shall return. We have nothing that is our own—all that we have is a gift, which we did not create. Quoting Job again: if I have accepted good things from God should I not also accept evil. God does not give us evil things, just as a father does not give his son a snake when he asks for a loaf of bread. However, he does allow for the existence of evil, or rather more precisely for it not to exist, since evil is an absence of goodness, because without allowing for evil to “exist” nothing could exist except for God who is the only truly good thing in existence. But God's allowance for the existence of evil is such that evil can exist in the particular creature while still allowing for the overall goodness of creation. Thus even when, first the angel Lucifer and then, man increased the evil in creation by committing original sin and sentencing himself to suffering, death, and damnation, creation was still as a whole still good and still redeemable. The physical and moral evils in this world are a result of this original sin that will plague us till the end of the world, but where evil abounds grace abounds the fuller. All that we have and all that we shall receive is a gift from God for which we should be thankful—and if in the fullness of time God chose to take from us his breath of life, depriving us of existence, who are we to complain. Rather we ought at least to be thankful for what time he has given us. However, while our material bodies corrupt and return to the dust from which they came God so love mankind, go so love the world, of man, that in the fullness of time he sent his only begotten son that we might not perish but have eternal life. What my acquaintances could not grasp was that all of life is a gift—a gift which God has given us for a time in this life where we must suffer the effects of our own sins, and a gift which he has promised us even unto the end of the world for, ages unending, in the life to come.Yesterday as I visited with some people in the hospital I got many different responses to their suffering and illness. Some felt self-pity, others sorrow, others despair, and still others hope of going home, but one lady stood out as an example of how a Christian ought to react to suffering, illness, and even death. This woman had been sick for a while and did not expect to go home any time soon, and yet she was cheerful and happy, and she made those around her cheerful and happy. She had a hope which was not for any earthly peace but for the arms of her savior. Though in pain, though suffering, this woman approached life as it is, as a gift, and she gave thanksgiving for all the blessings she has received. Fairness or quality of life was not a part of the equation, for all that mattered was love, the true love of her savior. If more people embraced this philosophy of life, if more people embraced the love and hope that is the Christian faith, then there would be considerably more happy people in this world, despite, or rather because of their, infirmities, sufferings, and joys. A ll life is precious, be thankful for what is given you and adore He who gave it, this is the secret of true happiness.

The Church in Scandal

The most important admonition in the Canons of Church law is the prohibition against causing scandal. In fact, Christ himself warned his Apostles against anyone who would cause one of these little ones to loose their faith. For some time now I have been contemplating the scandal and its impact on the Church and on my vocation. In the context of vocations I think it is important to revisit this issue because the scandal has impacted and will continue to impact young Christian women and men as they discern vocations to religious life and/or the priesthood for some time to come.I recently took a one day private retreat. During the retreat I read a fictional novel as a spiritual reading. Though the book was 600 pages it was so engaging that I read it in just a few hours. The book was Michael O’Brien’s Apocalypse entitled “Fr. Elijah,” a book which I whole-heartedly recommend to you. O’Brien presents a fairly accurate view of the Church as it might look in the end times, suffering and isolated. Moreover he presents an excellent eschatologically oriented view of the Church. Of particular note are the chapters that he dedicates to the penance of a warped deviant materialist old man at the end of his life and to his theology of the Papacy. The latter he conveys by means of a conversation between an ailing but saintly Pontiff and a renegade Cardinal, who suggest that the aging pope ought to retire ostentatiously, so that the Cardinal can assume the seat of Peter and fix the Church, which Christ promised would never falter. This book has helped me to understand the true scandal in a much more profound way.As the Church in America overcomes the recent scandal’s it is important to look at what is the true cause of the scandal. Of course in part it is sexual abuse; I don’t mean to minimalize this part of the scandal. I find it greatly disturbing that priests of God, men who were ordained by the Church to serve the people of God in persona Christi Capitus, in the person of Christ the Head, could attack and brutalize the weakest and most pure of God’s flock.However, I would like to suggest that this horrible act isn’t really at the heart of the Scandal, but rather an effect of it. Rather, the true root of the scandal is not that priests could sin, violently against the weakest most precious members of the society, the true scandal is the scandal, which reaches back further than these attacks. In my thinking it is the scandal which allowed these assaults to take place. My discernment process is one that has been marked by scandal, gratefully not my own!! During the years in which I prayed about my vocation, well before the sexual abuse scandal broke out in earnest, I was scandalized by what I believe is the true root of the scandal. The scandal that allowed priest to attack children is the same one, I think, that allows Catholics to leave the Church in flocks. It’s the scandal that has kept protestant’s, Muslims, and atheists from the Church for decades. The true scandal is poor education about what the Church truly is–and by extension poor education about what the priesthood truly is; by this I mean:–The Church is not a human institution although it is governed on some levels by humans–Belief in the Church is not a matter of an arbitrary choice between religions - but an acceptance of the one true church–The church is not in the rule-making, social work, or entertainment business but in the salvation of souls business...and–The Priesthood is not just a job although priests have jobs to performWhat do I mean by saying that these things are at the root of the scandal? If you believe in your heart that Church is a Sacrament–that it is a gift from Christ which gives grace–then you could not possibly leave the Church even if one (or many) of the Church’s shepherds failed in some horrible way. Similarly, as a priest if you truly believe that the purpose of the Church–and your purpose by virtue of the indelible mark of ordination–is to save souls, then as a believer fear of the lord alone should make this sort of abuse impossible!! The true scandal in the Church is an eccelesiology that thinks of the church as a human institution. It is scandalous because it leads you away from the truth of the faith because ultimately it denies that Christ founded the Church, as the gospel teaches in Matthew chapters 16 and 18 where he gives Peter, and later the twelve, the power to bind and to loose. When you deny the Church’s unique role as the only God given earthly government–you implicitly deny the Church’s awesome role in the economy of salvation, you lessen what the Church has to offer humanity, what it means to be a Catholic (that is a priest, prophet, and king after the example of Christ), and what it means to be an ordained Priest, an alter Christi.Growing up I was taught about Jesus, the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes but I was never taught about the Church’s singular role in God’s plan for human salvation. For this reason, even though I had felt a strong call to the priesthood as early as five, by the time I was in high school I was shopping for “a church.” If all churches are the same then all that matters in choosing a church is a personal preference. One of the first things that turned the tide of my thinking though was, ironically, the creed that the Episcopalians say at their services. While attending the funeral service for one of my friend’s father, I noticed that the Episcopalians use essentially the same creed that we Catholics use, a creed which includes the four notes of the Church: one, holy, Catholic, and Apostolic. I never truly left the Church but like many of my formerly protestant friends my heart fully returned to the Church after deep contemplation of these four marks, which have been central to Christianity since the council of Nicea. –Only the Catholic Church is truly ONE, bound together by the seat of Peter.–Only the Catholic Church is truly HOLY created by Christ and not by a man. –Only the Catholic Church is universal, or CATHOLIC, made up from diverse cultures and traditions from around the world.–And only the Catholic Church is APOSTOLIC, that is able to trace its origins back by a direct line of succession to Peter, Paul, and the other Apostles. All other Christian sects are missing one or all of these marks, even the orthodox. As a priest friend of mine, who is a convert from Episcopalianism, recently put it, the truth of the Church is manifested by the fact that it is the only Church that is truly concerned with the salvation of all Christians and in Christian unity. As I began to learn during my years at Catholic University and on a number of trips and pilgrimages to Europe, the Church is not one among many “options” but unique in its role in history. I learnt that as the old saying goes, “Extra Eccelsia Nulla Salus,” outside the Church there is no salvation. This saying has fallen out of favor in many circles because it is not considered ecumenical but I think it’s meaning is at the root of true Christian ecumenism. It means that, as the scriptures teach, God wills that all men be saved and to this end he gave us his only son; all hope of salvation comes from Christ through the Church he founded and through the sacraments, which his Church is the steward of. It does not mean that all non-Catholics are un-savable, to say this would be blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. While no man can pay his own debt to God, “Extra Eccelsia Nulla Salus,” means that: –a protestant Christian’s salvation comes through his Baptism into, the one true Church of, Christ –that our older brothers in faith the Jews can achieve salvation through Christ’s sacrifice for them which the Church re-“presents” at the sacrifice of the altar –that a Pagan’s salvation comes from the prayers and sacrifices offered for their soul–and that the fullness of truth subsists in the Church, which has a duty to spread the Gospel to these other people who are not in full union with Christ’s Church.This saying is central to what it means to be truly Catholic, or universal. Its central to the invitation of the Church to unity in Christ, unity in the Truth, and central to the vocation of all Catholics to bring the good news to all people.Much of the confusion about this teaching stems directly from an improper reading of Dignitatis Humanis, the Second Vatican Council’s document on human freedom and religious freedom. This document taught that a person can not be coerced into faith, as the church has taught since the middle ages. It also taught that since arriving at the truth about religion is so important, important to the salvation of your soul, states which are not competent authorities on matters of religion should ensure and protect a person’s religious liberty. It in no way suggests that all religions are true, but rather it demands that states allow for religious freedom so that the church can do its duty to spread the good news about Christ and his church to all people. I believe that correcting this modern error in thinking about the Church, through a re-evangelization and re-catechisis, is the only thing that will get to the root of the abuse scandal and at the same time to stem the tide of Catholics abandoning the Church. I am also convinced that it is the only thing that will help young people graciously consider their vocation in a proper light of the true faith faith.